by Armstrong Vas
Doha: Hosts Qatar overcame a fighting Brazil to begin their campaign at the 24th Men’s Handball World Championship on a winning note.
Yesterday at Lusail’s Multipurpose Hall, coach Valero Rivera’s side experienced a few hiccups against their South American counterparts, but kept their cool to script a 28-23 win over in the Group A encounter.
It was sweet revenge for the hosts who had lost to Brazil 30-25 in the first meeting between the two countries at a world championship 10 years ago in Tunisia.
The Qatari team took to the field of play with great hopes and full of confidence after winning the Asian Championship and the 2014 Asian Games and lived up to it.
The hosts, who are aiming for their best ever finish at the championship by making it to the quarter-finals, got off to a good start taking an early 3-0 lead.
Thereafter, the Maroons, backed by a capacity 15,000 crowd, maintained a three-goal lead for most part of the first-half.
The Brazilians bounced back and gained a narrow lead of two points at the fag end of the first-half, making it 14-12, but Qatar scored at the stroke of half-time to go into the break leading 15-12.
In the second half, Brazil made a valiant attempt to come on par with Qatar but a stubborn defense and some brilliant goalkeeping from Danijel Saric kept the marauding Brazilians at bay.
Qatar on the other hand stuck to their game plan and found the target at regular intervals to register a fighting win.
Mahmoud Hassab Alla top scored for the hosts scoring six times, while Zarko Markovic netted five.
For the Brazilians, Fabio Chiuffa top scored with six goals in a losing cause while Alexandro Pozzer found success on five occasions.
Qatar, the fourth country outside Europe to host a Men’s World Championship after Japan (1997), Egypt (1999) and Tunisia (2003), next face Chile tomorrow before taking on Slovenia on January 19, followed by world champions Spain on January 21 and Belarus in the concluding group match on January 23.
The 2015 edition of the International Handball Federation’s (IHF) World Championship is being contested by twenty-four teams at three newly-constructed state-of-the-art arenas.
After 18 competition days, the World Champion will raise the massive trophy on February 1 at Lusail Multipurpose Hall.
The field of participants is composed of 15 teams from Europe, led by world champions Spain and continental champion France, three Asian teams including host Qatar, who became Asian champions for the first time last January, three Pan-American teams including 2016 Olympic host Brazil and continental champions Argentina, and three teams from Africa, led by continental champions Algeria.
These 24 teams play in four preliminary round groups at three venues: the Duhail Sports Hall, Lusail Multipurpose Hall and Ali Bin Hamad Al Attiya Arena. The four best ranked from each group proceed to the quarter-finals where the group winners will face the fourth ranked teams and the second ranked will duel with the third ranked. The teams that finish in positions 5 and 6 in each group will compete in the Presidents’ Cup in the Duhail Sports Hall for ranking positions 17 to 24.
The knock-out stage will be completed by the quarter-final and semi-final rounds, the bronze medal match and the final – and, in contrast to the 2013 World Championship in Spain, with a placement round for positions 5 to 8.
This determination of the final ranking is of crucial importance for the road to the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro. While the new World Champions will book their direct ticket for the Olympic handball tournament as the first team after host Brazil, the teams that finish in positions 2 through 7 will qualify for the Olympic Qualification Tournaments to be played in spring 2016. THE PENINSULA
